Biometric evaluation of the head region of Iranian Arab horse

The history of the Arabian horse goes back about 5 thousand years ago. This breed has played an important role in the life history of human and horse. Regarding to differences existing in the shape and size of the head in horses, using of biometric indices is a practical method to identify a horse breed. The present study was designed to determine the biometric indices of different head regions in the Iranian Arab horse. In this research 9 characteristics of different head regions were evaluated in 30 Iranian Arab horses. These horses were at least 3 years old and were selected from Kerman horse corrals. Then the mean, standard deviation, coefficient of variation, and confidence interval of the characteristics were calculated by use of Stata 10.1 software. The data were compared between male and female groups, as well as between the age groups older and younger than 8 years old by independent t-test. The results of this study showed that the length of head and length of lateral aspects of the face had the lowest coefficient of variation among the measured characteristics, respectively. But the inter angular mandibular distance and height of ramus had the highest coefficient of variation, respectively. In this research, the characteristics were compared in different age and sex groups. This comparison showed a significant difference in the length of frontal and the caudal width of head regions in two different sex and age groups respectively.